Drop Zone rapidly became one of my favorite Sky Patrol members when I reviewed the 1990 vintage figure about 10 years ago. The original used the body of the 1986 Strato-Viper and to recreate that look for Joe 2016 the Club went to the renamed 25th Anniversary Air Viper body. This build should have worked– except for the fact that the Air Viper body is thin. Like crazy thin. Almost “we need to have an intervention and force you to eat a meat loaf” thin. As a result, and it could just be the effect of the Club’s over-reliance on Photoshop to create their mock-up, this figure just looked gangly– as if Gollum decided to join the Air Force and become a member of an aerial team. I won’t lie– the Sky Patrol figures were the reason that I signed up for my Homefront Heroes set and I’m not really feeling the love on this one. There’s also no mention of a new head sculpt which means we’ve only had, to the best of my knowledge, TWO new heads in this entire set so far. It makes you wonder where the budget is going this time around?

Hmmm…. the Club certainly tried to update the 1990 Brazilian Abutre Negro figure. The color scheme is certainly there although the Club devianted from their usual “strict adherence to the original design” policy and varied up the legs from the original. While the Accelerator Suit torso sort of simulates the pronounced Cobra sigil of the original it also modernizes it a bit. From the neck down, the figure isn’t all that bad. However, and please may this be another Photoshop slip-up, what is the deal with the neck?! It’s like he needs to be named Girafa Negro because something just isn’t sitting right on those shoulders! Hopefully this one looks better in person. Otherwise…. yeah.

How do they stack up against their vintage counterparts? Well, you be the judge!

As of now, only Static Line remains unseen. Hopefully he’s pretty spectacular as I’m not really feeling the high altitude excitement here– especially with the lack of new tooling displayed thus far.

About Fred Meyer

Digital strategist by day, hack writer and photography by night - this long-time figure collector still thinks that he can string words together and form meaningful entertaining sequences. He is obviously mistaken.